Page 26 of I'm Not Yours
“That’s pretty low.” I stood and marveled. I was totally amused at the thought of Dad upside down. That’s what a drunken parent who calls you apple-core face does to you. They warp your sense of humor.
“I peered into the window and said, ‘You ready to change now, you donkey’s ass?’ He was crying. Broken. Like a bird withall the bones shattered here and there, the feathers of his wings all falling off. I hate to see a man crumble down to nothing, but he had to have that sweet meltdown. He nodded his head and vomited, so I called the police and a tow truck. They came. Ambulance took him to the hospital. I wasn’t going to take him smelling to the high heavens like that. He had to stay there for three nights.”
“What were his injuries?”
“Oh, a bunch of ’em. Self-deserved, by golly. Broken leg, broken arm, concussion. Dehydration. He’d tossed his cookies. Bruises. Bumps on his noggin. Truck was totaled. He remembered seeing me the night before, but I told him he wasn’t ready to join the civilized world because he was a menace to the rest of us on the road, so I’d left him.”
“What did he say?”
“He told me later that he was grateful every day he didn’t hurt anyone else and he deserved to be left there.”
I had to take a moment to process that one. My dad never took responsibility and was never concerned about anyone else.Never.
Pearl pointed her finger. “That man was so destroyed from what he thought was going to be his certain death, he didn’t even get mad at me. He had trouble breathing in there, he told me later. He’d had two heart attacks in his life and he thought the big one was coming and he was going to die upside down in his truck—”
“Two?” I knew about the one. “How . . .” I choked back a wall of emotion that unexpectedly sprung up in my throat. “How was he after that?”
“Didn’t touch a drop.”
“He stopped drinking? On his own?”
“Nah. That would have been impossible—he was too much of a lush, total crackpot. A bunch of the neighbors had one of thoseinterventions. We went over to his house and told him he was the worst son of a you-know-what when he was drinkin’. We told him he was goin’ to rehabilitation. He refused, said he could do it on his own, so Tally raised his gun and shot a hole through the floor.”
I hooted. “I saw that bullet hole, and there’s another one in the wall.”
“The one in the wall is from Larry Dave. He said, ‘Donkey’s butt, you’re going to rehab because if you don’t, I’m going to burn your house down so you’ll move. We can’t have hammered drunks driving here—there’s kids on bikes who could get hurt, and you have tried our patience to the limit.’ Your dad gave some more push-back, his face all bruised and busted, bandages everywhere, and Larry Dave shot the gun again. That was about it. Your dad almost pissed himself.
“We shoved him in Bryan B’s truck—he’s got his guns on a rack there. You know Bryan B yet? He owns a high-tech business. Anyhow, he and William took him in. William’s an ears, nose, and throat specialist and his brother is a doctor in one of the rehab places, so we were able to smooth things along.”
“How long was he there?”
“Six months—can you believe it? He was a bad case. He didn’t have any of the animals then, so we checked on the house, made sure the pipes didn’t freeze and bust.”
Six months in rehab would have cost a fortune. I thought of my ball-breaking Grandpa Tad. He’d owned a chain of liquor stores and had made a bundle, although he lived like a pauper. That was where the rest of my dad’s inheritance went. Rehab and the house and orchard.
“They cleaned him up and started him thinking like a normal man, they did,” Pearl said.
I tried to squish down my roaring anger with my dad. Finally,finally, at the end of his life he gets sober? What aboutme? Whataboutmy mother? Why couldn’t he have gotten sober for us? His lack of sobriety cost my mother her life.
“How was he after rehab?”
“New man, sweetie. New man. Humbled down to nothing. Went to AA every day. Kind, gentle, started talking a lot about you and your mom.” Pearl’s eyes got watery. “He knew he’d blown it. It was one of the reasons he’d kept drinking. Said he’d been a terrible husband. He blamed himself for your mom’s death. Said if he hadn’t been a jerk, she wouldn’t have left, wouldn’t have been killed in the avalanche. Hadn’t talked to you in years and said he missed you like the dickens, but said he didn’t do a good job.”
“He didn’t do a good job? He did ahorrendousjob. I moved out when I was sixteen because I couldn’t stand him. Couldn’t take being called useless, dumb, weird eyes like a cat, sneaky, loose . . .” I could hardly say the words, and I had no idea why I was sharing them with her. Maybe it was Pearl’s kind eyes; maybe it was because she had known my dad but had a clear view of his vile personality.
I deliberately tamped down my rising temper. Why did I let the memory of him still yank my emotions around? Why did I let him have that control over me? “Were you friends with him then?”
“We were more than friends, sugar. After about a year of him being sober, we became a couple. He had a lot of edges that I had to smooth down with a sandblaster and a pickax. I let him have it a number of times, and sometimes I wouldn’t even speak to him and he wasn’t allowed to cross my doorway. See, I think the alcohol stunted his emotional growth and maturity, and I had to play catch-up with him, beat him into human form and release the caveman within.”
“How’d he do?”
“By the end he was a good man, Allie. He even adopted the animals, all of them strays or rescues, to keep him company, and he spoiled all of them. He trained as a carpenter and actually did good work. See all my shelving? He did that for me.”
I choked down a sob and put my hands to my face.
“I’m sorry, honey. I know that’s gotta hurt to the core. He was good for me but not good for you and your momma, who deserved it. I get it. Man, that chicken-crap man! It makes me burn to think about it. You and your poor mother. That scarecrow creep. I’m telling you, I told him to call you and he said he did, but you didn’t call back, and I said to him, ‘What did you expect?’ He knew—he knew, Allie—that he didn’t deserve you. He cried over it.”
“You must be joking.”
